The Uncertain Gene - 7

Proton Tunneling Induced Mutation

This series began with a specific focus on "proton tunneling" as a source of genetic mutation.

This series also considers generic results which could be caused by that specific event.

I am talking about the dynamic of machine mutation which takes place in the molecular machines that make up the cosmos of abiotic entities within cells, and more specifically the mutation taking place as a direct result of proton tunneling.

Therefore, this series also considers the probabilities that random machine mutation also has an impact on biotic entities, including human beings.

Further, since the human species is composed, like all cell based life, of both molecular machines and carbon based entities (both abiotic and biotic things), I noted earlier in this series that changes in molecular machines can cause changes at the biological level of cells too (cf. Putting A Face On Machine Mutation - 4).

A paper was published today in the journal Science which bears upon the subject matter of this series:

Genomic analyses of single human neurons—either from postmortem brains or those derived in culture—reveal a considerable degree of DNA copy number variation, according to a paper published today (October 31) in Science. It is likely that these genetic differences affect brain cell function, and they may even shape our personalities, academic abilities, and susceptibilities to neurological diseases.
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Hall has been able to sequence the genomes of 110 individual neurons from the postmortem brains of three individuals. He found that a striking 41 percent of the cells contained one or more copy number variations. Most of these were sub-chromosomal alterations—either deletions or duplications.

He and his colleagues also found similar copy number variations in neurons derived in culture from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Fred Gage and colleagues at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, who collaborated on the paper, studied 40 individual iPSC-derived neurons using a recently developed single-cell microarray-based strategy, and found that 13 of the cells had unique changes to their genomes.

Interestingly, neural progenitor cells derived from the same iPSC lines did not exhibit such abundant diversity. This suggested that the genetic variation in neurons occurred only at later stages of differentiation. And that the variation developed in a short space of time—the seven weeks it took to differentiate neurons from neural progenitors. Furthermore, the results implied that genetic variations seen in adult postmortem brains were unlikely to be a mere side effect of aging.
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Indeed, Chun said it is possible that the observed genetic diversity in the brain may influence behavior, intelligence, and susceptibility to neurological and neuropsychiatric diseases. “I would say it is certain there will be functional consequences for at least some of these changes,” he explained.

(The Scientist, Our Fallen Genomes, Journal Science). The statement that "a striking 41 percent of the cells contained one or more copy number variations" is unexpected in brain cells.

That same unexpected discovery has been made in other areas where the human genome was found to be surprisingly variant:

From biology class to “C.S.I.,” we are told again and again that our genome is at the heart of our identity. Read the sequences in the chromosomes of a single cell, and learn everything about a person’s genetic information — or, as 23andme, a prominent genetic testing company, says on its Web site, “The more you know about your DNA, the more you know about yourself.”

But scientists are discovering that — to a surprising degree — we contain genetic multitudes. Not long ago, researchers had thought it was rare for the cells in a single healthy person to differ genetically in a significant way. But scientists are finding that it’s quite common for an individual to have multiple genomes. Some people, for example, have groups of cells with mutations that are not found in the rest of the body. Some have genomes that came from other people.

(The "It's In Your Genes" Myth - 2, emphasis added). Add to that the fact that most of the genetic material in us is microbial (The Human Microbiome Congress), and we do not have a workable handle on all of that, the discipline of microbiology is looking like a good place for college and university students to ponder --as future career paths.

Maybe they can tell us which used book store gives the most coin for old, out of date science textbooks (The Appendix of Vestigial Textbooks - 4).

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

A Decline Of The American Republic - 3

In this series Dredd Blog presents a general viewpoint that declines of empires are gradual, moving from one "a decline" to the next  "a decline" until the final "the decline" eventually takes place.

The series also applies that standard of observation to the decline of the U.S. empire, or the ongoing decline of America.

One contrary viewpoint is expressed in the book "The Myth of America's Decline" written by Josef Joffe.

Mr. Joffe argues his case by citing to serious economic predictions, of various and sundry economists and whatnot, which have not come to pass.

Which begs the question, is the tracking of economic functionality the single most important characteristic to watch in terms of detecting a declining empire?

Another author we have already cited to in this series uses a similar technique, that is, he relies on economic conditions at a given time as the single most important characteristic to observe, but advances a different approach:

Hey, are you tempted to wonder if one man's "decline" is another man's "ascension" as I have been?

Perhaps that notion is what one author meant when he said:

"This is not a book about the decline of America, but rather about the rise of everyone else."

(The Post-American World, by Fareed Zakaria). I think we have to admit that Mr. Zakaria has learned much after immigrating to the U.S. from India, especially how to spin softly but write a big book.

(A Decline Of The American Republic - 2). Ok, so Josef Joffe says we derive the answer by comparing America to China, while Fareed Zakaria says we derive the answer by comparing the rise of other national economies with the stagnation of the American economy.

The Dredd Blog argument is not based on presuming economy to be the single most important factor:

The exercise, then, is to isolate the predominate dynamic, the one which is prevalent before and during all of "a decline" events and in "the decline" --as was done in the first episode:

Who in their right mind would take off their clothes while freezing? Well, that leads to the crux of the matter.

My offer in this matter is that the one thing that is prevalent in all "the declines" is the ingredient of the institutionalization of delusion.

In the final analysis, once delusion becomes institutionalized, "the decline" is assured even when preceded by "a decline" after "a decline".

(ibid). The institutionalization of delusion is the institutionalization of official propaganda (see The Ways of Bernays and Etiology of Social Dementia - 8).

(A Decline Of The American Republic - 2). So, the Dredd Blog argument is: once delusion becomes institutionalized, "the decline" is assured even when preceded by "a decline" after "a decline".

When an empire begins to delude itself about itself, as well as the world around it, its perceptions are no longer a part of reality.

Of course, the notion of this type of decline assumes that influential people are the first to lose touch with reality, then they establish and institutionalize a path of decline for the rest of the empire to follow:

THE conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.

Our invisible governors are, in many cases, unaware of the identity of their fellow members in the inner cabinet.

They govern us by their qualities of natural leadership, their ability to supply needed ideas and by their key position in the social structure. Whatever attitude one chooses to take toward this condition, it remains a fact that in almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons — a trifling fraction of our hundred and twenty [now 320] million — who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.
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It is the purpose of this book to explain the structure of the mechanism which controls the public mind, and to tell how it is manipulated by the special pleader who seeks to create public acceptance for a particular idea or commodity. It will attempt at the same time to find the due place in the modern democratic scheme for this new propaganda and to suggest its gradually evolving code of ethics and practice.

(A Closer Look At MOMCOM's DNA - 4). We know who those who make up that Epigovernment might be.

In a plutocracy / wartocracy it is those who have and control wealth and the means of producing more wealth and control:

Here's a fact that will make any liberal cringe.

Seven of the 12 richest people in the world have names ending in Koch, Walton or Adelson, according to a new calculation by Bloomberg Markets magazine.

Of course, extreme wealth gives you a lot of political power.

(Half Of The World's Richest People Come From Just 2 Families). Likewise we know who they are not:

The massive and growing gulf between rich and poor is one of the direst challenges facing the U.S. economy.

Highlighting this gap, more than half of U.S. wage earners made less than $30,000 last year, according to an analysis released by the Social Security Administration on Tuesday. That's not far above the $27,010 that marked the federal poverty line for a family of five in 2012.

We've created this infographic to help visualize the skewed income distribution in the country.

Where do you stack up?

-If you make more than $10,000, you earn more than 24.2% of Americans, or 37 million people.

-If you make more than $15,000 (roughly the annual salary of a minimum-wage employee working 40 hours per week), you earn more than 32.2% of Americans.

-If you make more than $30,000, you earn more than 53.2% of Americans.

-If you make more than $50,000, you earn more than 73.4% of Americans.

-If you make more than $100,000, you earn more than 92.6% of Americans.

-You are officially in the top 1% of American wage earners if you earn more than $250,000.

-The 894 people that earn more than $20 million make more than 99.99989% of Americans, and are compensated a cumulative $37,009,979,568 per year.

(Everyone In America Is Even More Broke Than You Think). You may be wondering why I am focusing on economic factors, if they are not the single most important factor as I stated above.

Yes, I stated that institutionalized delusion is the characteristic to watch, and Americans have been deluded by propaganda in their economic thinking:

Our culture tells us "we are the richest nation" of all of the nations in modern civilization, which, in traditional American conversation has meant "we the people", "Americans", or the general citizenry.

Yes, that "we are the richest nation" has traditionally meant that our system of government, with its economic tides, floated all boats, because it was designed to increasingly sustain the common good over time.

That is no longer working out for us because the worst of history is repeating itself:

... the private and state institutions that serve our corporate masters are unassailable. When these ideas are shattered, the institutions that buttress the ruling class deflate and collapse. The battle of ideas is percolating below the surface. It is a battle the corporate state is steadily losing. An increasing number of Americans are getting it. They know that we have been stripped of political power. They recognize that we have been shorn of our most basic and cherished civil liberties, and live under the gaze of the most intrusive security and surveillance apparatus in human history. Half the country lives in poverty. Many of the rest of us, if the corporate state is not overthrown, will join them. These truths are no longer hidden.

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Several Dredd Blog series, in addition to the post in the current series you are now reading, have focused on the reality (see e.g. The Homeland: Big Brother Plutonomy, The Graphs of Wrath, with the following general flavor ...

(American Feudalism - 7). The institutionalized delusion is that the American dream is as real as it ever was, that the middle class is solid, and that we are going to continue to be a nation of equal opportunity:

In the maelstrom of the shutdown, a debt-ceiling suicide attempt and the cutting off of nutrition support for poor people by Congress, it's clear that America's political class has unbounded belief in national stability.
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When you examine the devastating effects of slashing food support for the poorest citizens, while simultaneously maintaining generous tax rates for wealthy individuals and corporations that can, a la Romney, pay less than 14 percent income tax, or Apple, which is able to shelter most of its profits from taxation, you have to assume that confidence in stability is approaching "irrational exuberance."
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But clearly the sum of the parts of these serial acts of national recklessness has a real impact. We can measure that effect in plummeting consumer and business confidence before, during and after the shutdown debacle.
We can also look at the super-majority of Americans who think that the country is heading in the wrong direction, and we must wonder how this acute sense of pessimism will manifest itself long-term.

(Hubris: Politicians Overestimate America's Stability). The reality now is that America does not have the economy of a democracy, no, it has the plutonomy of a plutocracy:

The data may be a further sign that the U.S. is becoming a Plutonomy – an economy dependent on the spending and investing of the wealthy. And Plutonomies are far less stable than economies built on more evenly distributed income and mass consumption. “I don’t think it’s healthy for the economy to be so dependent on the top 2% of the income distribution,” Mr. Zandi said. He added that, “In the near term it highlights the fragility of the recovery.”

(The Graphs of Wrath). Another institutionalized delusion which is at the heart of the matter is that the military is the most competent institution for Americans:

In the first post of this series, we pointed out that most Americans polled in an annual Gallup Poll think that the military is the most competent institution in America.

In that post we perused Gallup Poll figures from 2009, as shown on the graphic to the left (red lines added).

Today in 2011, the military is still seen as the most competent American institution, according to this year's Gallup Poll, even though the wars they are prosecuting are not at all popular.

Let's take a look for reasons and realities as to how it is that the military, once considered the lackey for the tyranny of the tyrants, has come full circle to invade and occupy the hearts of a once freedom loving people.

(Stockholm Syndrome on Steroids? - 2). That institutionalized delusion is the result of decades of propaganda designed to cover up the feudalistic policies and structure which have drastically changed the American reality for the worse (American Feudalism - 7, Epigovernment: The New Model - 5), and is turning the world against the U.S. (e.g. American Death Spiral in Mideast).

The world around us is more aware of this reality than those in the U.S. who are dazed by media propaganda:

... In 1999, political analyst Samuel P. Huntington warned that for much of the world, the U.S. is "becoming the rogue superpower," seen as "the single greatest external threat to their societies."

A few months into the Bush term, Robert Jervis, president of the American Political Science Association, warned that "In the eyes of much of the world, in fact, the prime rogue state today is the United States." Both Huntington and Jervis warned that such a course is unwise. The consequences for the U.S. could be harmful.

In the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, the leading establishment journal, David Kaye reviews one aspect of Washington's departure from the world: rejection of multilateral treaties "as if it were sport."
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Becoming a treaty-worthy nation [at our founding] thus conferred multiple advantages: foreign recognition, and the freedom to act at home without interference. Hegemonic power [to the contrary] offers the opportunity to become a rogue state, freely defying international law and norms, while facing increased resistance abroad and contributing to its own decline through self-inflicted wounds.

(Why the World No Longer Wants to Be Like US, emphasis added). The glittering generalities (a.k.a. statesmen) in the dysfunctional congress do not seem to care about our reputation in the world:

Now we know exactly how many members of the U.S. House of Representatives care enough about American terrorism to attend a Congressional briefing about a U.S. drone attack that followed a classic terrorist pattern in killing a grandmother and wounding nine children in Pakistan. Five.

Five members of "the people's house" came to the briefing, and one of them was there for the full 90 minutes.

When one of the witnesses expressed disappointment at the turnout, a congressman reassured him: this was better than we expected. They were all Democrats.

Had any other American lawmakers joined the audience of somewhat more than 100, they would have heard some of the survivors describe the inexplicable (and unexplained, because the CIA does not explain) attack in which the first drone missile blew up a 67-year-old midwife as she was picking okra and wounded two of her grandchildren. Others came out of a nearby house to see what had happened and the second drone missile wounded seven more children.

This is a classic terrorist tactic, sometimes called the "double tap," using the first explosion to draw a crowd of first responders and onlookers as targets for the second explosion. Typically the double tap attack rings up a higher score.

In a sane world there might be more outcry against the world's only superpower using terrorist tactics on civilian populations in a half dozen or more countries, based on the rationale of a global war on terror (no longer the official name) that, so far, seems only to have added death and chaos to an already deadly, chaotic world because no one in authority seems capable of coming up with a less destructive way of defending our homeland at the expense of any other homeland we select.

(US Is a State Sponsor of Terrorism, Boardman). Five congress members, out of 435, showed up for testimony about the ongoing and habitual killing of innocents by our military, the "most competent institution" in America?

Ultimate decline is something that usually hides itself in "a decline" after "a decline", which are not added up to present the total picture by those who are delusional.

Those "a decline" events end up culminating in "the decline" if delusion clouds the vision of the people long enough.

The previous post in this series is here.

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The News That Wasn't vs. The News That Was

India's First Mars Mission Lifts Off

I noticed three stories that happened or came out yesterday are subjects which the USMSM (a.k.a. McTell News) is not  in general very interested in.

That is most likely because those stories challenge the current exceptionalist world view of American exceptionalism (Exceptionalism In A Nutshell).

A world view which is constantly being hawked by the growing right wing elements and ideology in American Society, a world view that turns off the majority of people in the U.S. and in the world at large.

Before discussing them in depth, let me mention them by name or subject matter:

1) Million Mask March
2) India's Launch of a Mission To Mars
3) The Syria Chemical Weapons Diplomacy

The Million Mask March was in yesterday's Dredd Blog post (The Million Mask March).

The story about India launching a mission to the planet Mars was covered by Space dot Com (more about it below).

The Syria Chemical Weapons Diplomacy story was covered in the Washington Post.

In fairness to McTell News, I do realize that yesterday was an election day, and that today is "here is why So and So did or did not get elected" day.

Those election raps take precedence because the media is self-absorbed with the myth that elections in the U.S. still matter.

The myth that elections in the U.S. still matter in terms of the media's thinking that elections and their coverage of elections are part and parcel of changes that lead to improvements (Will Elections Cure The Disease?, When Accountability Is A Plague).

Yes, the myth that changes-for-the-better, which supposedly come with elections, are media events (The Elections of Pontius Pilots - 3).

The media have fostered another myth about space exploration as well, which is basically that the U.S. is the only one who can ever do meaningful space travel, even though we were not the first in space, and even though European Nations, China, Russia, and now India have conducted or are conducting space missions:

India's first-ever mission to Mars launched into space today (Nov. 5), beginning the country's first interplanetary mission to explore the solar system.

With a thunderous roar, India's Mars Orbiter Mission rocketed into space at 4:08 a.m. EST (0908 GMT) from the Indian Space Research Organisation's Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, where the local time will be 2:38 p.m. in the afternoon. An ISRO Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle launched the probe on its 300-day trek into orbit around the Red Planet.
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If all goes well, India's first Mars orbiter — called Mangalyaan (Hindi for "Mars Craft") — will arrive at the Red Planet on Sept. 24, 2014, making India the fourth country to successfully deliver a spacecraft to Mars.

(Liftoff! India's First Mars Probe Launches Toward the Red Planet). The efforts at space exploration and global climate change would go much better, in terms of wasteful duplication of efforts and other deficiencies, if nations could work more effectively together.

This is made more obvious by the final matter, the so-far successful diplomacy between the U.S. the UN, Russia, and Syria:

Last week, buried beneath banner headlines blaring about Obamacare hearings, National Security Agency surveillance revelations and the Boston Red Sox’ World Series win, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) quietly reported that Syria “has completed the functional destruction of critical equipment for all of its declared chemical weapons production facilities and mixing/filling plants, rendering them inoperable.”

On the heels of winning the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize, the unglamorous but undeniably effective OPCW, using saws, sledgehammers and cutting torches in the middle of a war zone, defied predictions by meeting the Nov. 1 deadline to disable Syria’s chemical weapons program. The bombshell was that there was no bombshell — at least, not of the unconscionable chemical kind.

This wasn’t just a vindication of President Obama’s decision to work with Russia on a non-military solution to the Syrian weapons crisis (and a well-deserved slap in the face to neoconservatives like Bill Kristol, who compared the president of the United States to Groucho Marx, “doing farcical pratfalls as he followed down Neville Chamberlain’s tragic path.”) It was also a success for international organizations like the United Nations and the OPCW, and, indeed, for diplomacy itself.

(Strange Silence Regarding Syria). One would think that everyone could enjoy the fruits of nations working together more and more to avoid war, suffering, global warming, and disease.

And to work together to improve space exploration, in terms of efficiency and mutual rewards.

Like Russell Brand said at the Million Mask March, "we deserve more from our democratic system".

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It may seem extreme to say that if we do not change to renewable energy civilization as we know it will not be here in 100 years, but that is literally the case.

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The Million Mask March: Today

Why haven't we heard much about The Million Mask March scheduled to take place around the world today?

Because McTell News does not want to think about things like that, or tell you about them.

Things like "at some 450 locations around the world people will protest or advocate such things as the military NSA spying, warmongering, hunger, peace, and trying to silence masks aplenty" (Million Mask March, see also this and this).

The MSM will be telling you about things they have been scripted to tell you about, in most places the news is talked about, because they do not want you to know about the world around you.

Regular readers know that Dredd Blog is quite the masky one, telling you about The Leeks, The Epigovernment, The Military Police, The Military Spy-on-the-People Ops, The Virgin MOMCOM, American Feudalism, and big Oil-Qaeda, to name a few.

For a list of many, many more see the Series Posts Tab and/or the Searches Tab at the top of any Dredd Blog page.

Now, go vote if you are so inclined, then more importantly off to the peaceful protests!

UPDATE: Reports indicate that it went well! Russell Brand was quoted as saying "we deserve more from our democratic system":

Protesters wearing the white-faced Guy Fawkes masks that have become synonymous with the Occupy movement and the hacktivist grouping Anonymous have taken part in hundreds of gatherings around the world in opposition to causes ranging from corruption to fracking.

Demonstrations in more than 400 cities had been planned as part of the event - billed as the "Million Mask March" - that coincided with Guy Fawkes Day.

One of the largest protests of Tuesday night took place in central London, where the comedian and advocate of "complete revolution" Russell Brand was pictured among crowds

"we deserve more from our democratic system"

of people wearing a Guy Fawkes mask.
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In the US, protesters in Washington DC gathered at the Washington Monument before walking to the White House to raise awareness of causes including opposition to mass surveillance and genetically modified foods. Other protests, of varying size, took place in cities including Vancouver, Tel Aviv, Dublin, Paris, Chicago and Sydney.

One of a number of Facebook pages for the event described it as a "Call for Anonymous, WikiLeaks, the Pirate Party, Occupy and Oath Keepers to defend humanity".

"Remember who your enemies are: billionaires who own banks and corporations who corrupt politicians who enslave the people in injustice," it added.

(Guardian, "Protesters gather around the world for Million Mask March").

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Why Not "Clean Coal" or "Safe Nuclear"?

A stunning development has taken place in the environmental protection culture.

Some climate scientists are changing their perspective on whether or not nuclear power plants are a viable way to slow down global warming induced climate change.

The world renowned climate scientist and activist James Hanson, and several other climate scientists, are expressing approval for nuclear power plants:

Some of the world's top climate scientists say wind and solar energy won't be enough to head off extreme global warming, and they're asking environmentalists to support the development of safer nuclear power as one way to cut fossil fuel pollution.

Four scientists who have played a key role in alerting the public to the dangers of climate change sent letters Sunday to leading environmental groups and politicians around the world. The letter, an advance copy of which was given to the Associated Press, urges a crucial discussion on the role of nuclear power in fighting climate change.

The letter signers are James Hansen, a former top NASA scientist; Ken Caldeira, of the Carnegie Institution; Kerry Emanuel, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Tom Wigley, of the University of Adelaide in Australia.

Environmentalists agree that global warming is a threat to ecosystems and humans, but many oppose nuclear power and believe that new forms of renewable energy will be able to power the world within the next few decades. That isn't realistic, the letter said.

(Top Scientists Ok Development of Nuclear Power). The same question can apply to coal, oil, and nuclear: "what do you mean by 'clean' and what to you mean by 'safe', considering Chernobyl, Fukushima, Three-Mile Island, and San Onofre - to name a few?

Further, the premise of their argument: The belief that "new forms of renewable energy will be able to power the world within the next few decades ... isn't realistic" is based on what?

Let's look at Europe, where Germany has passed laws to fully shut down all current nuclear power plants, and see what they have in mind:

[The European Wind Energy Association] EWEA and others believe Europe could achieve an electricity which is 100% from  renewable sources, with wind energy providing 50% of this.

The European Commission believes wind energy will supply between 32% and 49% of the EU’s electricity by 2050. The key will be a Europe-wide power grid which will transport wind energy from where it is produced to where it is consumed – the wind is always blowing somewhere.

Today, in Denmark, over 26% of electricity demand is already supplied by the wind, and is managed successfully by the grid operator. The Danish government aims to get 50% of its electricity from wind by 2025. In Spain 16% of electricity demand is met by wind, and at times wind provides over half the electricity needed.

(EWEA FAQ, emphasis added). There have been more optimistic statements about wind energy in the U.S:

A worldwide survey of wind energy by the Stanford team of Cristina Archer and Mark Jacobson concluded that harnessing one fifth of the earth’s available wind energy would provide seven times as much electricity as the world currently uses. For example, China—with vast wind-swept plains in the north and west, countless mountain ridges, and a long coastline, all rich with wind—has enough readily harnessable wind energy to easily double its current electrical generating capacity.

In 1991 the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) released a national wind resource inventory, noting that three wind-rich states— North Dakota, Kansas, and Texas—had enough harnessable wind energy to satisfy national electricity needs.

(Earth Policy Institute, emphasis added). Then there is solar, both photo-voltaic (PV) from solar panels, and solar-thermal generating which turns water into steam to power electricity generating turbines.

As concerns liquid fuels, Dredd Blog has a series that made various references to the use of methanol (not ethanol) and tidal powered turbine generators:

In the post Some Way Out of Here on The Ecocosmology Blog, two technologies or parts thereof were mentioned, as tools to be used on the path back to sanity, away from the current realm of social dementia.

That post mentioned methanol, which was first isolated in 1661 by Robert Boyle, as well as mentioning a tidal electric generator long ago conceived, but recently improved upon.

There are many forms of alternative energy generation and storage, but these two have formidable transitional characteristics, so without disrespecting any other clean energy, we focus on these two in this post.

The hope of methanol is that it can be produced from some of the green house gases, (e.g. CO2 and methane), natural gas, and biomass, just to name a few.

Methanol can even be made from (can come from) "thin air", by using electricity to distil it as CO2 is removed from the air in the process.

Ocean tides are billions of years old, are still working strong 24/7 around the globe, and can generate electricity constantly, wherever tidal generators are placed, for as long as there are tides.

(A Methanol Economy Way Out Of Here, see also A Methanol Economy Way Out Of Here - 2, A Methanol Economy Way Out Of Here - 3, A Methanol Economy Way Out Of Here - 4, A Methanol Economy Way Out Of Here - 5). I am not convinced that those scientists are correct on this, even though there is talk of "safe and clean" thorium nuclear power:

Another place liquid salt is used for power generation has been around for quite a while.

The administrator of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, top physicist Alvin M. Weinberg, wanted a Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor (MSR), but was fired by Nixon for advocating MSR.

(Solar Power Even At Night). There are pro-thorium and anti-thorium arguments, so I wonder what is behind the four scientists and their nuclear about face.

Could it be triage ideology (How Fifth Graders Analyze Hurricane Sandy - 2)?

Do they see that there is not enough co-operation among nations to bring it about (Will Copenhagen Be Snuffed Out? - 2)?

Is Oil-Qaeda too powerful within the Epigovernment?

Or are we all going crazy under the pressures that global climate change is projected to cause (The Peak of Sanity - 3, The Criminally Insane Epoch Arises)?

The four climate scientists need to make their case.

How Fifth Graders Analyze Hurricane Sandy - 2

In the first post of this series we focused on the concept of a Global Climate System, as well as a damaged Global Climate System.

The reason we focus on systemic concepts is so we do not fall into the trap of thinking of global climate based only on our own local weather.

That trap can cause us to think "if my weather is ok, weather is ok everywhere" or the contrary "if my weather is not ok, weather is not ok anywhere".

The focus needs to be on the multi-part nature of the Global Climate System (oceans, atmosphere, poles, equator, land masses, ice caps, water cycles, seasons, and the like), as individual parts, not on any one part to determine everything about the other parts.

This year had fewer hurricanes than expected, nevertheless we had a lot of typhoons and cyclones.

One typhoon, Wipha, of the several to hit nations around Japan,  went all the way from the south west Pacific up through Japan, on to Alaska with hurricane force winds there, then diminishing into a low and going across Canada then back down into the central part of the U.S., then weakening more before going off into the Atlantic.

Next year may be the opposite, because any damaged system is less predictable when one tries to forecast exactly what dysfunction will happen to any one single part within a damaged system (Agnotology: The Surge - 6).

We just know that the Global Climate System is dysfunctional, and we know that such dysfunction is not good:

A leaked draft of an international scientific report forecasts that man-made global warming likely will worsen already existing human tragedies of war, starvation, poverty, flooding, extreme weather and disease.

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will issue a report next March on how global warming is already affecting the way people live and what will happen in the future, including a worldwide drop in income. A leaked copy of a draft of the report's summary appeared online Friday. Governments will spend the next few months making comments about the draft.

The report details specific effects of warming and how countries and people can adapt to some of them. The American scientist who heads the report, Chris Field, says experts paint a dramatic contrast of possible futures.

(Climate: Violent, Sicker, Poorer Future, emphasis added). We can see that the damage which just one hurricane caused, Hurricane Sandy,  does not go away easily:

One year after Hurricane Sandy ravaged the Northeast coast, some of the hardest-hit communities continue to struggle with the storm's damage. Many of the areas most devastated by Sandy were home to low-income people who are now homeless. Even when families evicted by the storm have found somewhere safe to stay, they are frequently forced to bunk up with other families or sleep on the floor. Others hit the dunes. Making matters worse, winter is fast approaching.

In New York City, families that were already vulnerable to the housing crisis now face incredible burdens to finding affordable shelter in their communities. "Sandy was extremely devastating, but it actually uncovered and brought to light an already existing problem, which was a lack of affordable housing," says Ismene Ispeliotis, executive director of the Mutual Housing Association of New York. "Now you have hundreds and thousands of additional families going into the shelter system and burdening available housing."

In communities where repairing and rebuilding is a distant dream, hopelessness prevails for many. A year after the storm, these 10 Sandy-shocked communities are in desperate need of revitalization.

(Rolling Stone, emphasis added). Much damage from Hurricane Katrina, which happened about 7 years before Sandy hit, is still not fixed (GNOCDC).

Thus, as the number of catastrophic Global Climate System events take place around the world, some governments, under the influence of Epigovernment, tend to think that all they can do is triage (New Climate Catastrophe Policy: Triage - 10).

The particular Epigovernment which influences the U.S.A. is a global military empire (Epigovernment: The New Model - 5).

That Epigovernment is aware of the damage to the Global Climate System (All Weather is Local - 4) and has formulated contingency plans for triage (Internment & Relocation, see also Why Is The Government Conditioning Us To Austerity? - 2).

What the Epigovernment refuses to become aware of, however, is that they are the ones causing the problem (Oil-Qaeda: The Indictment).

The previous post in this series is here.